The avoidance of confusion
23rd August 2010, MondayTwo weeks ago I found a shrill carder bee Bombus sylvarum on the Dungeness RSPB reserve, and as it was the first British specimen of this bee I have seen I took a voucher specimen. This might seem an odd practice for someone always banging on about bee conservation, and I admit to feeling guilty afterwards. I’m glad I did though, for two reasons.
The following week several similar, though rather worn looking bees were observed in the same area. Closer examination with Geoff Allen and Nikki Gamans revealed that they were a different species, a type of flower bee Anthophora furcata (thanks to Dave Walker for the following photo).
These insects were confusing because their thorax appeared to be banded, with two yellow bands sandwiching a dark band, and had a reddish tail. However the dark band on the thorax was due to the absence of yellowish hairs exposing the dark cuticle underneath, and the abdomen was only sparsely covered in hair. The tibiae of the hind legs, however, were covered in numerous small hairs, most unlike a bumblebee.
Had I not collected a voucher specimen I would have started to doubt my identification of the shrill carder bee, but it’s identity is beyond doubt.
In this bumblebee the dark band in the thorax is due to numerous dark hairs, not skin, and the legs lack numerous short hairs (this feature does not show on the above photograph). So no doubt that this bee has colonised the area. We now hope to have the DNA tested to reveal where the bees came from (as we are pretty sure they died out on Romney Marsh before the 1990’s). The most likely source is the N Kent Marshes where the species managed to survive. This provides an opportunity to study the genetics of a colonisation of an area in coming years.
As for the flower bee, it does not appear to be thriving in Kent. It is a species that is linked with labiates such as marsh woundwort and black hore hound, and it is good to see it is still at Dungeness.